Patent attributes
A battery-powered device (BPD) node compresses certificate chains to generate compressed certificate chains. The BPD node includes a compression dictionary that indexes various data entries that occur across many certificate chains and/or repeat within a particular certificate chain. The BPD node compresses a given certificate chain by replacing data entries within the given certificate chain with indices to corresponding data entries in the compression dictionary. The indices are smaller in size than the corresponding data entries. A neighboring BPD node also includes the compression dictionary and decompresses a compressed certificate chain by replacing indices included in the compressed certificate chain with the indexed data entries stored in the compression dictionary. Performing certificate exchanges with compressed certificate chains reduces the amount of limited battery power that is depleted during certificate exchanges, thereby extending BPD node operational lifetime and helping to prevent the need for premature battery replacement.